Embodiments described herein relate to reducing energy consumption of network equipment, and more particularly, to apparatus and methods for selectively powering visual indicators included in the network equipment.
Some known communications networks have portions located within one or more data centers, which are centralized facilities (e.g., buildings) where data processing resources (e.g., routers, switches, servers, storage devices, and/or compute devices) are located. Some known data centers are configured to process, route and/or transmit electronic and/or optical signals to various nodes within the communications network. Some known data centers include large numbers (e.g., on the order of one hundred thousand) of data processing units (data processing resources).
Some known data processing units can include one or more light-emitting diodes (LEDs). The LEDs can produce different outputs associated with a status of the communications network, the operation of the data processing unit or the like. For example, some known data processing units include one or more LEDs that produce a flashing light to indicate the status of data transmission via the data processing units. Some known data processing units can include a display screen configured to output a fault code associated with a status of the operation of the data processing unit. Outputs produced by the LEDs and/or the display screen, however, can consume relatively large amounts of energy. For example, the LEDs included in the network equipment of a large data center can consume up to 1.2 kilowatt/hours per day or more. Moreover, large data centers are often not monitored by a person on a continuous basis. Thus, the visual indicators associated with the status of the network equipment are largely unnoticed.
Thus, a need exists for improved apparatus and methods for reducing energy consumption of network equipment.